Curriculum / Conceptual Mathematics / module 1

Multiplication You Can Touch

By OSH Founding Team✓ Verified by OSH Review Panel

The child builds multiplication from repeated groups and arrays using bottle caps, discovering that 3 x 4 and 4 x 3 make the same rectangle.

Watch

1. What multiplication means

2. Seeing it with arrays

Parent guide (what to say and do)

Give 12 bottle caps. Say: 'Make 3 rows with 4 caps in each row.' Count together. Now say: 'Make 4 rows of 3.' Ask: 'What changed? What stayed the same?' Let the child discover the answer is the same number. Then connect to writing: '3 x 4 means 3 rows of 4.' Play shop: 'I want 5 bags with 2 sweets each. How many sweets do you need?'

Learning material

30 bottle caps, beans, or buttons
Grid paper for drawing arrays
Array hunt worksheet (platform library)

Practical exercises and activities

Indoor: array hunt through the house (egg trays, window panes, tile floors are all arrays). Outdoor: count arrays in the neighbourhood: car wheels per row in a parking area, plants per row in a garden bed. Shop game: run a pretend shop where everything is sold in groups.

Materials required

30 small identical objects, paper, pencil. Nothing to buy.

Assessment checkpoints

Child builds any stated array up to 5 x 5, writes the matching multiplication sentence, and explains why 2 x 6 equals 6 x 2 using objects.

Learn with AI

Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.

For the student

A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.

For the parent or teacher

A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.

How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude

ChatGPT: Open ChatGPT → press your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → paste the prompt into Instructions → name it after the module → save for repeated lessons. Or simply paste the prompt at the start of a new chat.

Gemini: Open Gemini → Gems panel → New Gem → paste the prompt into the instructions box → name it after the module → save. The Gem stays available for every study session.

Claude: Open Claude → create a Project (or a Skill in Claude Code) → paste the prompt into the project instructions → every conversation in that project becomes a tutoring session for this module.

Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.

This module is part of the open OSH curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Print it, adapt it, share it.